Although my family were first generation Irish and my mother and aunts were trained as pianists, my only practise was singing to the accompanyment of my great aunt on the piano or the organ. My music lessons at school coincided with my voice breaking, I was not encouraged to take up music.
As a teenager,I was accepted as a full-time grant-assisted student at Chelsea School of Art to study painting and sculpture. At about this time,I first met John who was also a teenage student at The Royal Academy of Music.From 1962 , when I moved to West London,we lost touch for a while since we had both moved.I met up with John again in 1964 when he was selling ocarinas in Portobello Road.I was looking for somewhere to live at the time,and luckily,one of the tenants at the same house that John lived in in Camden Town was due to move out and John put me up in his room until the other room was availiable.
In 1966 I was a full-time student at The London School of Film Technique and whilst I was helping John to decorate his ocarinas I suddenly decided to learn to make them,and later, to teach ocarina craft.Susan Rawcliff, whose ocarina is featured on 'Ain't Whistling Dixie' was my first student in 1969.
From that time,I have made and sold ocarinas,in a huge variety of styles,shapes and sizes,all around the world,America,Europe,Asia and Australia.
From the early seventies,I began to change from John's original design (finger positions for 3rd and 7th notes) and to extend the range from an octave to an octave plus three notes.-the 'Semi-tone Lip-hole' , 'Special Configuration Fipples' and "Long Finger Holes" were my contribution in the eighties,when I began to collect music suitable for the ocarina from around the world.In the nineties, I began to get foreign language translations of my ocarina explanations and concieved the idea of the ocarina as a multicultural instrument which would allow someone from any culture to easily learn famous tunes from other countries..
I met Peter Dudley and began producing the music with him by fax and his Atari.
Late in 1995 I bought a computer and two months later when I had summoned up the courage to begin (actually turn the computer on!), I began (with a little help from my friends) to compose my pages
which were first uploaded in 1997,and,as you see are not finished by a long way!